Despite RSL Gift, Youth Sports Complex Still Short on Funds

None by KCPW

(KCPW News) ReAL Salt Lake has delivered the seven-and-a-half million dollar donation it promised to Salt Lake City for a youth sports complex. That allows the city to release a 15-million dollar voter-approved bond, but the council needs proof the complex will be viable. And now volunteer organizers says they need even more money:

"We're still probably a couple million dollars short even to get to the first phase," says Dave Spatafore, co-chair the Salt Lake Regional Sports Complex Authority. "Construction costs absolutely killed us."

The Sports Complex Authority campaigned for the bond and has spent four years trying to secure the money needed to begin construction. The original proposal called for 24 soccer fields, but Spatafore says they're only going to build 16 for now. With RSL no longer demanding profits from naming rights and concessions, Spatafore says that could be a source of money to fill the gap:

"There's no question that RSL would have a number of contacts that we don't have to help secure naming rights," says Spatafore. "We readily admit that. But now, we now have $22.8 million and then whatever naming rights we get comes on top of that."

Davis County authorities are also interested in adding to the project's bottom line, if they can convince the State Parks Division to include part of the neighboring off-road vehicle park in the sports complex. Within 30 days, the Sports Complex Authority hopes to present its business plan to the city council, but Spatafore says it could be a year before ground is broken at the junction of I-215 and 2200 North in Salt Lake City.

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